A Long Beach man has pleaded no contest to attacking a 12-year-old boy on a city bus, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said today.
David Manuel Santana Garcia, now 37, was sentenced Tuesday to 440 days in county jail and two years probation in connection with his plea to one count of child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury or death, according to Ricardo Santiago with the district attorney’s office.
Garcia was also ordered to cooperate with the probation department on a plan for mental health treatment, according to Santiago.
The boy reported that he was physically assaulted by a man while riding a city bus near Atlantic Avenue and Carson Street last Sept. 5.
“At this time, the assault appears to have been unprovoked,” Long Beach police said in a statement last September. “The victim sustained non-life-threatening injuries to the upper body.”
The boy’s father, Billy Brown, said last year that his son was recovering, but wouldn’t be getting back on the bus anytime soon.
“This guy just started hitting my son in the head like he was on UFC or something,” Brown told ABC7.
Police circulated surveillance images of the suspect, and Garcia was arrested on Sept. 8.